■ William H. Swanson is the chairman and chief executive
officer of Raytheon Company, an industry leader in government and defense
electronics, information technology, aerospace systems, technical services, and
business and special-mission aircraft. Swanson directed about 78,000 employees
in a company with 2003 sales of $18.1 billion.

■ In 2004 the Raytheon Company was the third-leading U.S.
defense contractor, behind Boeing and Lockheed Martin. The company was divided
into four segments: electronics, aircraft, engineering and construction
(specializing on industrial projects), and appliances (including Speed Queen,
Amana, and Caloric). The largest segment was electronics, which accounted for
almost 75 percent of corporate sales; Raytheon was ranked sixth nationwide in
that field, primarily serving the U.S. Department of Defense.

■ The electronics segment comprised air traffic control
systems, semiconductors, Patriot and Hawk missile systems, marine electronics
(such as commercial fish finders), and air-combat infrared imaging systems. On
the aircraft side of the business, the company was the leading U.S.
manufacturer of small passenger aircraft as well as turboprop and piston
aircraft, under such names as Beech, Hawker, King Air, and Baron.

FROM DRIVING GOLF BALLS TO
DIRECTING DEFENSE MISSILES

Swanson gained employment with Raytheon in
1972, just one week after his graduation from California Polytechnic State
University with a degree in industrial engineering, which he earned with the
assistance of a golf scholarship. After joining Raytheon, Swanson held a wide
variety of leadership positions, including manufacturing manager of the
company's equipment division, senior vice president and general manager of the
missile systems division, general manager of Raytheon Electronic Systems (an $8
billion defense electronics business), and chairman and CEO of Raytheon Systems
Company. Swanson was named president of Raytheon in July 2002, chief executive
officer on July 1, 2003, and chairman on January 28, 2004.

MERGING TECH GIANTS

In 1997 Swanson received a most difficult
assignment while serving as corporate vice president: he was to integrate into
Raytheon the newly acquired defense businesses of Texas Instruments (TI) and
Hughes. With the two acquisitions, Raytheon's overall revenues nearly doubled,
but the assimilation of the two former rivals into the Raytheon culture was not
predicted to be easy. Thanks at least in part to Swanson's leadership, Raytheon
emerged three years later as the leader in hightech warfare and remained a
corporate dynamo during the economic downfall of 2000–2002.

His efforts at Raytheon were fully realized
when the United States began to engage in the war on terror after the attacks
on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Realizing
that the military was insufficiently prepared in its existing capacity to handle
the new technologically advanced ways with which the war on terror would have
to be fought, Swanson expected that many billions of dollars would be awarded
to defense contractors in the immediate future. Thanks to Swanson's steady
buildup of the company's foundation, Raytheon was handsomely awarded many
contracts from the military.

SWANSON'S UNWRITTEN RULES
OF MANAGEMENT

He was also one of the toughest defense
executives in recent history. Tyrone Taborn reported that the retired General
Lester L. Lyles, who had been the air force's only African American four-star
general, said of Swanson, "Raytheon is clearly in the top echelon of
Department of Defense contractors because of his leadership"
(January/February 2004).

Swanson's leadership style was formulated on
25 management rules that he developed over his four-decade long career at
Raytheon. Taborn cited a number of these rules: "Learn to say, 'I don't
know'; if used when appropriate, it will be often. If you are not criticized,
you may not be doing much. Look for what is missing. Many know how to improve
what's there, but few can see what isn't there. Don't be timid; speak up;
express yourself, and promote your ideas. Don't ever lose your sense of
humor." Perhaps the most amusing of Swanson's rules: "No one likes a
grump except another grump" (January/February 2004).

EMPHASIS ON ETHICS AND
INTEGRITY

Swanson spoke openly about his emphasis on
integrity and ethics in the business place. During his 2002 commencement speech
at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, when he received an honorary
doctorate, he told the audience, "In
today's business world, ethics, integrity and honesty are the new mantra of
every successful venture; unfortunately, not everybody 'gets it.'" He
went on to say, "American business
has never needed to focus on ethical behavior more than today. And that's an
area in which you as Pepperdine graduates with your strong background in ethics
can help us make a difference right from the start—because business ethics
isn't something you can just put on like a raincoat when the weather gets a bit
stormy; you need to make a commitment to business integrity from Day One, even
when the sun isn't shining" (December 7, 2002). Swanson went as far as
to compare unethical behavior in the United States with unpatriotic behavior,
especially in view of the tragic events of September 11, 2001.

Swanson also commented, during the same
speech, on the importance of making mistakes. He reminded the audience that he
often said that “if a person did not make
mistakes, then that person was not working hard enough and not taking enough
risks to beat the global competition.”Swanson related an experience he had
had early on in his career at Raytheon: one of his first bosses wrote on his
performance review, "This young man never makes the same mistake twice,
but I do believe he has made them all at least once" (December 7, 2002).

DIVERSITY THROUGHOUT

Many outside experts and inside managers
credited Swanson with saving Raytheon, both financially and socially. When Swanson
secured the top job at Raytheon, he immediately went to work incorporating
greater diversity into the company. Realizing that women, African Americans,
Latinos, Native Americans, and persons with disabilities made up two-thirds of
the U.S. work force but held only about 25 percent of the technical jobs,
Swanson made an unwavering commitment to increasing the number of minorities
employed by Raytheon and by the technology community as a whole. As evidence of
the importance he placed on minority employment, Swanson's first speaking
engagement on a college campus was at Tuskegee University in Alabama, a
prominently black institution; over 40 Tuskegee alumni were on Swanson's staff.